CPTnet
January 27, 2001
HEBRON UPDATE: January 12-16, 2001

Friday, January 12, 2001
At approximately 1:30 P.M., Israeli military blocked off Shuhada Street near
the CPT apartment, prohibiting passage of all people and vehicles. At about
2:15 P.M., Israeli military sent a robot to blow up a box left in the area,
which turned out to be garbage.

As Bob Holmes was walking up Shuhada Street after the box incident, a
teenage boy from a group of about twelve settlers attacked Holmes, calling
him "Nazi", and pushing him, open handed, about four times. Holmes did not
budge, said nothing to the boy, and called out to an accompanying adult
about ten feet away, "Do something about him." The adult gave no
acknowledgement of hearing Holmes, and neither said nor did anything to
restrain the boy. Instead, Israeli soldiers ran and grabbed the boy, hauling
him away from Holmes. Both the soldiers and members of TIPH (Temporary
International Presence in Hebron), who also witnessed the assault, asked if
Holmes was OK. TIPH got video footage of the assault.

Later that afternoon, on upper Shalala Street, a Palestinian youth
approached Pierre Shantz and Rick Carter, telling them about the shooting of
a Palestinian man by several Israeli soldiers down an alley in
Palestinian-controlled H1. The youth said that the soldiers chased the man
down an alley off lower Shalala Street and shot him six times. The soldiers
then dragged the man by his feet 100 meters before other soldiers picked up
his arms, while others grabbed his belt and carried him the rest of the way
to the Israeli settlement of Beit Hadassah. Eyewitnesses told Bob Holmes and
Rebecca Johnson the next day that there, a few soldiers and settlers kicked
and spit on the man, and strangled him. Following positive identification of
the body by the brother of the dead man, Israeli soldiers then arrested the
brother. The body was transported to the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.

Later in the week, the team read the following letter to the editor
regarding the incident in Ha'aretz newspaper:

As a Jew and ex-IDF officer, I was shocked to see IDF soldiers dragging a
bleeding young Palestinian in the streets of Hebron. The shocking image
showed our solders as sadists who rejoice over the killing of a young man,
and drag his body to our settlers to rejoice, dance, exchange candy and
congratulations and kick the not-yet-dead body.

It reminds me of cheetahs and hyenas, which kill and drag their prey. The
problem is that these animals kill to survive. Our solders kill to maintain
the occupation, an apartheid system.

It seems to me that our society has become increasingly violent and moved
away from Zionist principles. When the Arab crowd lynched our solders in
Ramallah, it was criminal, and they were savage, and when our disciplined
solders do it, it is heroism and civilized.

I strongly believe that their blood is as red as ours and equally sacred.
Our army's actions in the West Bank and Gaza amount to crimes against
humanity. The Israel
Defense Forces should investigate in a fair way and punish these soldiers
before the world wakes up and put most of us on trial for crimes against
humanity.

Rafi Miller
California

(Ha'Aretz, Wednesday, January 17, 2001)

At 6:30 P.M., just prior to saying grace before the evening meal, CPT
members heard a rapid volley of gunfire. This repeated at 6:40, 6:50 and
7:00 P.M. During the second to last volley, a tank shell was fired, and in
the last volley, members saw tracer bullets into the Palestinian
neighborhood of Abu Sneineh. Shortly after the firing was finished, curfew
was announced.

Saturday, January 13, 2001
CPT members Anne Montgomery and Jamey Bouwmeester joined the Hebron team,
after closing down the Beit Jala project.

At approximately 11:30 A.M., Holmes and Anita Fast saw some young
Palestinian boys throwing stones at a Shuhada Street checkpoint. There were
several armed settlers there as well as soldiers, but no shots were fired.
While on patrol, Holmes and Fast assisted a Palestinian man stopped by
police, who was violating curfew in his attempt to get to his chicken stall
located just outside the CPT apartment. Holmes and Fast were successful in
persuading the soldiers to permit the man access so he could water his
chickens.

Holmes and Johnson reported the settler assault on Holmes to the Israeli
Police at the police station near the settlement of Kiryat Arba. Holmes
expressed his appreciation of the soldiers' response, but also indicated
that he wanted it known that he was not happy with the settlers' response to
these situations. The police officer replied, "You don't have to tell us
about the settlers." A photograph of the teenager who committed the assault
was not among those on file at the police station. The police indicated a
positive identification is necessary, and asked for Holmes' assistance in
obtaining a picture.

Monday, January 15, 2001; Martin Luther King Day
While Montgomery was in the market, a shopkeeper told her that settlers were
being disruptive in the Hisbe vegetable market. Fast and Palestinian
journalist Kawther Salaam joined Montgomery, and the three went to the Hisbe
Market to investigate. Settlers were gone by this time, but journalists
there told team members that four male and three female settlers had been
there, overturning tables in the vegetable market. Palestinians started
yelling at them, soldiers separated the two groups, and soon police came and
took the settlers back into the Avraham Avinu settlement. The journalists
said that no one was hurt.

Art Gish visited the family of Yousef Jaber in the Beqa'a, and was told that
a demolition order had been issued on their home approximately ten days ago,
and that their land had been confiscated.

Tuesday, January 16, 2001
Fast, Johnson and Montgomery joined a march of seven Israeli
women demonstrating to end the occupation. The march, co-ordinated by
Kawther Salaam, also in attendance, commenced at the foot of Duboyya
Street. Almost immediately, Israeli soldiers attempted to halt the marchers
at the Tel Rumeida checkpoint.
However the women pressed on around the soldiers, holding high black
placards shaped as an open hand, with the message "Stop the Occupation,"
written in Hebrew, Arabic and English. About 75 metres further on, the
military parked a jeep across the street, and over a dozen soldiers
physically stopped the marchers by linking arms. Soldiers